Small shop owners, trade unions and left-wing activists rallied in India's capital on Thursday to protest moves by Wal-Mart and other foreign megastores to enter the Indian market, according to AP. The protest was relatively small, attracting only a few hundred people, who shouted and burned effigies that represented Wal-Mart and its local partner, Bharti Enterprises. But the rally underscored how tensions are growing in India as the country's economic boom moves beyond high-technology and other big businesses that employ relatively few people and starts transforming parts of the economy that provide livelihoods for hundreds of millions of people _ and have remained largely unchanged for generations. Since the start of the year, there have been spasms of violence by farmers angry over losing their land to big industrial projects, and a communist insurgency has continued to intensify in the hinterlands of southern and eastern India. Organizers of Thursday's protest said it was now the turn of the country's estimated 12 million mom-and-pop shops to be heard, promising more rallies. «This is just the first days of a long campaign,» said Dhamendra Kumar of India FDI Watch, a group that's lobbying against the big stores. «Corporate retail is going to crush the spirit of this country.» The protesters' slogan, «Quit Retail,» is a play on Mohandas Gandhi's famous «Quit India» slogan, which rallied the country to independence from Britain 60 years ago this month. While the rise of a mall culture in India, and the chains and megastores that go with it, has been welcomed by many in the country's rising middle class, opposition is growing to foreign chains like Wal-Mart and domestic companies that are setting up similar chains. «My business is going down. I can't offer discounts the big shops offer. Why is the government not protecting us? We are not fit for other jobs if we lose our businesses,» said Alok Prakash, who owns a small general store in Mumbai's busy Dadar market. But highlighting how difficult a task it is to rally opposition to megastores, Prakash had not even heard of the protest planned in the evening and a day-long strike called for that city's stores. Other shop owners in Mumbai said they would only close if their competition did as well _ and that wasn't happening. «Why will I close when the next shop is open? All my business will go to him. A strike makes sense only if all participate,» said Prem Patel, who sells grains and other provisions in Mahim, a suburb of Mumbai. On Monday, Bentonville, Arkansas-based Wal-Mart, signed a deal with Bharti Enterprises to jointly build wholesale outlets that will buy goods from farmers and small manufacturers and sell to retailers. Critics say the move is a backdoor attempt by Wal-Mart to gain entry to the Indian market, which remains off-limits to stores that sell a variety of different brands. Those that offer only a single brand were allowed in last year. With its 1.1 billion people and growing middle class, India is considered a rich prize for big retailers. Wal-Mart is not the only foreign chain seeking to tap a market estimated to be worth more than US$250 billion and growing at a rate of 20 percent a year. Global retailers like Carrefour SA of France, Tesco PlC of Britain and Metro AG of Germany have lobbied the Indian government to liberalize rules protecting the retail market.
